freezing peppers & chilies

[kickassangel]

can i sling peppers & chilies straight into the freezer, or do i need to de-seed them & chop them up first?

tia

depends how much you want to have to do once thawed

they will be squishier when they defrost so harder to work with.

Also bear in mind that chillies can get hotter when frozen, so you might prefer to do them first!

I like chopping chillies when they are still crunchy from the freezer, so I freeze them whole - I think I can chop them more finely that way, and get less heat on my hands.

dunno about peppers

I chop my chillis from frozen.

I also just leave them on a plate in the kitchen windowsill and they dry out, so no need to freeze.

ok, thanks. there's too many for me to do before freezin, once frozen i will only use one at a time, so won't have to face doing 20 at once.

Chop chillies from frozen - they lose a bit of crunch but no noticeable difference for cooking.

Pepper - I deseed and chop them into big chunks so that I can put them straight into curries etc. Particularly good if you have a couple that you're not going to use before they go all soft and squishly.

we dried our chillis 5 years ago and they are still fine in a plastic box. I strung them together with thread and hung them above a hot radiator.